The volume examines processes of conquest, domination, and administration from a European perspective, as well as their subsequent justification and historiographical presentation. In 17 contributions from scholars from Switzerland, Italy, France, and Great Britain, the roughly simultaneous conquests of the Habsburg Aargau in 1415, the annexation of large parts of present-day France by the English king during the Hundred Years' War, and the expansion of power by rural municipalities and cities in northern Italy are compared. This results in a surprisingly coherent picture of conquest and appropriation as structural elements of political change in late medieval Europe, extending far beyond the regional individual cases.